False Guilt and Heavy Burdens
by Ethell
Summary: Tag for Ghost in the Machine. Jennifer takes it upon herself to free McKay of his guilt.


Disclaimer: If it was mine, I certainly wouldn't be cancelling the show.

Spoiler: Everything up to Ghost in the Machine is fair game.

A/N: Well, I've done another one. I'm not as happy with this one as with the one before, though… (That's me not so subtly fishing for comments/compliments, so please review! :P)

No but really there are still a number of details I'm not completely satisfied with, but I just wanted to stop agonizing over it and start another story!

Again, I'm not a native English speaker, so sorry for any mistakes that may have escaped me.

* * *

Jennifer watched them from afar, that night, as they sat in the mess hall together. Their table was always one of the loudest. In good days, you could hear the playful banter of Sheppard and McKay punctuated by the occasional booming laughter of Ronon, most of the time at the expanse of the latter. Even in bad days, however, they were hardly silent: McKay's exasperated rants were indeed very hard to ignore.

Tonight, though, was something altogether different. Neither of the four seemed inclined to utter a word, and they all kept their eyes averted to their food. It was a rather depressing sight to behold.

She understood, of course. How could one be happy after the day's event? And especially those four, who had been so close to her…

She was sad too, of course, but she had to admit that what really broke her heart was the sight of Teyla, who was clearly close to tears; of Ronon, darker and more silent than she'd ever seen him before; of Sheppard, his eyes hollow and his snarky comments gone.

And the sight of Rodney, silent and withdrawn.

She knew many would not see the difference between this and the way he acted when he felt particularly hostile about everyone and everything. Or when he was so self-absorbed that nothing but his thoughts mattered.

She, of course, knew better.

It was something in the way his shoulders were slumped and his back curved, something in the way his eyes were fixed and his mouth tightly set. Something in the way his whole body seemed tense, as though he was enduring a particularly unpleasant telling-off.

She knew that, in a way, he was.

She sighed, wishing the man wasn't so hard on himself. Only in his mind was he being held responsible for what had happened, but nonetheless she knew he would never forgive himself for this imaginary fault. If only she knew of a way to relieve him of his burden…

She watched him close his eyes in a grimace, as though unable to bear the weight of his thoughts any longer. It pained her to see him like, to see a man so brilliant close his eyes to the truth.

McKay suddenly lifted his head and looked at her, a sad ghost of his usual smile on his face, and when he looked away again she had made a decision. She would put an end to this, regardless of his opinion on the matter.

--

It was so late when she entered the lab that no one was in there except Zelenka, which, with threats of various unpleasant medical treatments, she was able to get rid of. Her efforts were rewarded when some time afterwards she heard heavy footsteps in the hall. Seconds later, McKay appeared in the doorway.

He was so self-absorbed that he didn't see her right away: he went straight to his computer and, with a heavy sigh, turned it on.

Well, this could work at her advantage, she thought. Walking silently to the door, she waved her hand in front of the controls and it swished closed, effectively blocking his escape route.

At the sound of the door, McKay turned towards her, startled and slightly panicked. He relaxed when he saw her.

"Jennifer! God, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"I'm sorry, Rodney, but you were so lost in your thoughts that you didn't even see me when you walked in!"

"You were there when I got here?" he asked, surprised.

She nodded.

"But…why?" He looked thoroughly puzzled.

She shrugged non-committedly.

"I just wanted to talk."

The surprise gone, his eyes had gone back to their previous dullness.

"Well I'm pretty busy right now, you know, lots of work to do. Maybe later," he said, turning back to his computer, effectively dismissing her.

Jennifer had no intention of obliging him. She felt her eyes narrowing in irritation.

"I think you misunderstood me, Rodney. _I _want to talk, and _you_'re going to _listen_."

Even someone as thick as Rodney McKay couldn't mistake the tone of anger in her voice. He turned back towards her, his eyes wide.

"Wh…What? " he sputtered. "Why are you – "

"I know what's on your mind, why you came to the lab so late to work, why you don't want to talk. I _know_, and let me tell you you're being ridiculous. I'll be damned if I let you get away with it this time."

She paused and glared at him for a moment. When she satisfied herself that he wasn't going to object and that he was silently listening, she took a few steps towards him, her eyes softening.

"You have to stop beating yourself up with guilt. What happened to Elizabeth isn't your fault, and no one's blaming you. No one blamed you when we lost her on the Replicator home world, and no one's blaming you now that she sacrificed herself for us."

"But it _is_ my fault, Jennifer, don't you see?" he objected pleadingly. "I'm the one -"

"You're the one who reactivated the nanites, I know. But whose idea was that? Who came to you and asked you to do it? Who gave up on any other form of treatment and decided that it was the only way to save her? _Who?_"

"Well," McKay answered, "um… you, but that… that doesn't -"

"That doesn't make me guilty?" she finished for him. "How do you come to the conclusion that what happened to Dr. Weir is your fault and not mine? If anything, you only did what I told you to do, so it's _my_ fault, and not yours!"

"No, no, no, you only did what you could to save your patient. There's nothing wrong in that. No one's blaming you for -"

"And how is your situation _in any way_ different from mine?" she interrupted, getting more irritated, her voice rising with each word. "_You_ were only doing what you could to save Elizabeth, just like me! If you choose to feel guilty, fine, but then I'll share the blame!"

"It's not the same!" shouted McKay, getting up from his chair. "It _is_ different! And it's not just Elizabeth! I screwed up that day, ok? Had I thought of the star drive earlier, we would've had enough power to the shield to make it all the way to the planet! Had I not opened my big mouth about the Replicator command code to attack the Wraith, we would all have gotten back safely with Elizabeth! I just… I just completely screwed up!"

"You can't possibly hold yourself responsible for every single thing that happened that day!" Jennifer replied, incredulous.

"Of course I do!" he yelled, agitated. "Because it _is_ my fault! It's my job to fix those problems, my job to save all of our asses, and when I don't succeed, when something go wrong, it's nobody's fault but my own! Most of the time people die on this base, be it in a jumper accident or in a tumor explosion, it's because of me!"

He stopped for a second, trying to regain his breath.

"I let everyone down that day with Elizabeth, and I don't care if you lie to me and say it's not my fault. I… I don't care, I don't… I don't need your sympathy or pity or whatever it is you've come to offer…"

Losing his steam, he turned his eyes back to the floor in abject misery. Jennifer stared at him, too dumbstruck to speak.

"Look," McKay said more calmly, still looking down, "I just… I need to work, ok? There are… things I have to…"

He looked up at her and waited to see if she would leave. When she didn't move, he sighed, picked up his computer tablet from his desk, and walked past her out of the lab.

She made no movement to stop him.

--

When he left the lab, he was so agitated that he didn't pay attention to where he was going. There was a reason why he never talked to anyone after such awful events, and this was exactly it. He couldn't control himself at times like these; he couldn't keep from saying exactly what he wanted, regardless of who he was talking to or where they were.

_It's just like a wound_, a detached part of his brain observed. _Once you open it there's no stopping the bleeding_. _It just keeps coming out, and it's not pretty._

He finally calmed down, exhausted by his emotions. He suddenly took notice of his surroundings, and realized he was standing in front of a door leading out to a section of the pier, the exact same place he'd come to when he was mourning Carson. He had avoided it ever since, not wanting to reawaken painful memories – _if only I'd gone fishing with him_ - but now his subconscious had led him straight back to it.

He used to come to this place to try and get rid of his anxiety, of his doubts and regrets. He had lost every comfort in it since the death of his good friend, one of the few persons in his life that had tried to talk to him, to understand and help him.

He'd never had a friend like that. He would never again have a friend like that.

However, he had, for some months now, felt the dull pain of ache over Carson's death ease in the presence of someone else, another person who, for reasons he didn't quite understand, cared about him enough to try and talk to him when everyone else would have given up.

And he'd gone and yelled at her for that.

He really was an idiot.

--

Later that night, Jennifer sat on her bed, unable to sleep. Rodney's words kept playing in her head, deafening in their intensity, heart-wrenching in the pain they revealed. She had known he felt guilty about Elizabeth, and suspected he blamed himself for a lot more. She just didn't know that 'a lot more' was, well… everything.

She could understand where all of this came from, however. It was true that whenever a problem occurred, everyone turned to him, expecting him to solve it and save the day. How could such an attitude not make him feel responsible for everything and everyone? She couldn't imagine what kind of pressure this put on him, and how he could live with it, everyday.

Sighing, she reached for a vest on her desk, put it on and walked to the door, with the idea that a warm cup of hot chocolate might help settle her thoughts. She waved in front of the control panel and exited her room, only to find herself face to face with a pacing Rodney McKay.

He looked up at the sound of the door and stared at her, his expression going from startled to worried to embarrassed.

"Rodney?" she asked hesitantly. "What are you doing here?"

His eyes frantically moved around, as though he was looking for a plausible explanation, for an excuse and a quick escape, before they settled on the floor.

"I, um… I… came here to… to apologize for… I didn't want you to, um… to be mad at me because of…"

"Rodney," she replied soothingly. "Rodney, it's alright, I'm not mad."

Instead of calming him, this just seemed to agitate him further.

"Of course you're not mad, you're way too kind and patient and wonderful to be mad." he waved off, before realizing what he said and reddening. "Um, what I mean is… You… You _should_ be mad. I mean, you came to see me to make sure I was alright – a thing already amazing in itself, because, really, why would you bother with me? – and then you put up with me when I'm being rude and you don't say a thing when I yell at you and now you're _here_, listening to me not even being able to apologize correctly _and you're not mad_! That's… You… You're just…"

He trailed off, clearly at a loss for words and embarrassed beyond speech, and let his head drop again. Smiling, Jennifer walked up to him and took his hand, pretending not to notice his whole body tense up.

"Rodney, you have to stop doing that." she said softly. "Stop depreciating yourself, stop being so demanding and exigent about what you do."

She paused, waiting to see if he would look at her. When he didn't, she took his other hand with her free one and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Now, listen to me. It's wrong of us to expect you to save us all the time, and the day you don't, the day the situation is completely beyond anyone's capacity, the day there's absolutely nothing you can do, it won't be your fault, and we won't blame you for it. I've never seen anyone try as hard as you do, with as much commitment, to solve every problem they come across. It's not your fault when something goes wrong, when it goes out of control."

As he started shaking his head in disagreement, she moved her hands to his shoulders and shook him gently, as if to emphasize her words.

"It's not, Rodney." she pressed. "And I'm not lying, and I'm not saying it because I feel sorry for you. You may have done mistakes in the past that _are_ entirely your fault, but now is not the case. This time, it isn't your burden to bear."

She paused expectantly. He slowly raised his head, and she was shocked to find tears in his eyes.

"I… I can't…" he whispered, his voice breaking. "I can't do this, Jen, I can't live with the pressure, it's… it's so draining… and then I fail and it gets harder… to live with myself, to look everyone in the eye… I can't… I can't keep up like this, it's… it's so hard… and sometimes I feel like I'm all alone, alone against everything …"

He let his head fall down again, closing his eyes, and Jennifer found her eyes stinging with tears at the sight of this enthusiastic, confident, self-sufficient man looking so vulnerable.

Moving closer so that she was inches away from him, she reached out to place her hand on his cheek, waiting for him to raise his head and for his eyes to gaze into hers.

"You're not." She whispered, barely audible. "You're not alone, Rodney."

She moved her hand to the back of his neck, gently pulling his head down as she lifted her face to his.

For a moment, all she saw was intense blue before she closed her eyes and her lips touched his.

He remained still for a moment, eyes widely opened, obviously in shock, before moving his hands to the small of her back, pressing her body against his. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the blissful taste of her mouth moving against his, the feeling of her hands in his hair, the warmth of her body against his, and he hoped to God he wasn't dreaming.

She pulled back a moment later, panting, and looked up at him inquiringly. Eyes glazed, he smiled at her, his heart rising.

"You're right," he said, his voice slightly hoarse. "You're right. About everything. And it will be better, just… Stay here, and it will better."

She leaned in, her lips almost touching his.

"I'm not going anywhere." she whispered, before she closed the gap to kiss him again.


End file.
